Honest Singapore cabbie returns almost $1 million in cash

The Singapore cabbie noticed a black paper bag left in the back of his vehicle after he dropped off a vacationing Thai couple at a mall.

Inside the bag: a whopping 1.1 million Singaporean dollars — about $900,000.

"When I saw the money, I thought, trouble is here. I was sure there was at least $200,000 in the bag,'' the 31-year veteran in the taxi business told the Straits Times of Singapore.

Tian immediately took the cash to the lost-and-found office at ComfortDelGro taxi firm. Soon after, the couple contacted the cab company.

The overjoyed couple gave Tian an undisclosed "handsome reward." He was also honoured with an award for good service from his cab company, AFPreports.

"The money is unimportant to me. It doesn't belong to me, so how can I use it?'" Tian told the newspaper of his decision to turn in the cash.

"Finding one million dollars in cash is not an everyday affair and in fact, we wonder how many people would have possibly been tempted" to pocket it, company spokeswoman Tammy Tan toldAFP. "We are immensely proud of him and are glad that the passengers recovered their money."

In September of this year, Las Vegas taxi driver Adam Woldemarim returned the $221,510 left by a lucky gambler in the back of his vehicle. A colleague of Woldemarim's hoped his story would help boost taxi drivers' reputations:

"They never see the good side to us, the honest side. If you can just print that, that would be nice," Alex "Baharu" Alebachew told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.